Learning Sites and Facilities

As a student at DMS, you will be part of northern New England's most extensive clinical teaching network—a network that, along with the off-campus clerkship opportunities, exposes you to a breadth of patients, delivery systems, and management models that is unusual in American health education. The primary teaching sites for DMS students are Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center (DHMC) and the Veteran's Affairs Medical Center (VAMC) in nearby White River Junction, VT. Both of these academic medical centers offer superb clinical care; train medical students, residents, and fellows; and have strong research enterprises.

A Level 1 Trauma Center, DHMC serves a patient population of 1.6 million, drawn from across Northern New England. It is home to more than 350 residents and fellows and is a core teaching hospital for our required clinical clerkships. DHMC includes the Norris Cotton Cancer Center, one of only 40 National Cancer Institute designated comprehensive cancer care centers in the country. DHMC is also among a select group of 100 US hospitals that are producing the best clinical outcomes for cardiovascular care, treating heart patients in less time and at a lower cost, according to a 2007 study by Thompson Healthcare. If all cardiovascular hospitals received the same results as the award winning hospitals, more than 7,000 lives would be saved annually. DHMC is certified as an ALS Center of Excellence by the national ALS Association. Headed by Dr. Jeffrey Cohen, Associate Chief of Neurology at DHMC and Professor of Neurology at DMS, the center was the 24th to be certified by the ALSA, the organization that sets the national standard for clinical care for people and families living with ALS.

Other important centers at DHMC include the Children's Hospital at Dartmouth (CHaD) and the Center for Shared Decision Making. Supporting these centers are two additional major research sites, the Borwell and Rubin Research Buildings. DMS receives more than $111 million annually in sponsored research. The future will see the opening of three added centers, a Comprehensive Cardiovascular Center, the Translational Research Building, and a new home for The Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice. The Veterans Affairs Medical Center, located 15 minutes from DMS, is consistently rated as one of the best VA hospitals in the country. Every year since 2005, it has received "Circle of Excellence" designation in the VA's Robert W. Carey Performance Excellence Award program recognizing

"management approaches that result in sustained high levels of performance and service to the veterans we serve." Its outstanding clinical services support many DHMC residency programs and DMS clinical clerkships. The VAMC includes the National Center for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, the VA Outcomes Group (a division of The Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice), and the Yasinski Research Building, which receives over $5 million in annual research support.

DHMC Honors
DHMC was recognized by the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation as one of the 2008 recipients of its first annual "Quality Care Award: Recognizing Outstanding Quality Improvement Processes and Accomplishments."

In 2008, the American Pain Society announced that DHMC's Richard Barrett Pain Management Center was one of only six recipients nationwide of the organization's Clinical Centers of Excellence in Pain Management award, highlighting the nation's outstanding pain-care centers.

DHMC was recognized in 2008 with the Department of Health and Human Services Organ Donation Medal of Honor for its sustained efforts in achieving high donation rates. DHMC is one of only 108 hospitals out of nearly 6,000 nationwide to maintain a

Norris Cotton Cancer Center, where patients are partners with their care team, allows opportunities for integration of research and clinical care at DHMC.

"As modern as a
hospital can be."

conversion rate of greater than 75 percent over three consecutive years.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services announced in 2008 that the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Clinic, along with nine other physician groups participating in an innovative Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services-sponsored Physician Group Practice Demonstration, were able to make significant quality gains for patients with certain chronic conditions, while generating $17.4 million in savings for the Medicare program.